The Astrology of Aloneness and Loneliness: Libra Rising–Pisces Rising

The following is part 2 of The Astrology of Aloneness and Loneliness, focusing on the rising signs for the last six signs of the zodiac. Visit part 1 to read the introduction or see descriptions for the rising signs for the first six signs of the zodiac.

Libra Ascendant/Aries Descendant: This is a dynamic and romantic combination, which is one of the reasons these people rarely have trouble attracting lovers. Venus rules the chart, and Mars rules the Descendant, so see if these two planets are in aspect–you’ll know that ideas about love and romance probably motivate this person’s life decisions.
They say that Libra thrives in relationship, and I suppose that’s mostly true. It’s a rare human being who prefers to live up on a mountaintop with only his sheep for company. I think the kind of relationships Libra Ascendant thrives in are probably more adversarial than otherwise, although the implication is that the Libra Ascending person is somehow better at relating than the rest of us.

In fact, I’d say the finer details of how to relate are a process that’s being learned with this natal combination. Aries on the Descendant attracts youthful combatants, or sporty types, anyone who isn’t afraid of getting into the ring and sparring with you.
Libra rising, though, unless the rest of her chart leans toward enjoying rough types, would really rather not attract Aries energy per se. The person ruled by Venus is either just trying to get along with others and is therefore nice and doesn’t willingly rock the boat, or he is the type of Libran seeking justice, and willingly takes on anyone who needs to be taught a lesson in politics, manners, or any other Libran-type subject your Libra rising person believes someone else needs to learn today.

There do seem to be two types of Libra Ascendant people: One, those who see the world as a place that needs a lot of work and that has a lot of people who need working on–these could so easily attract an Aries-type counterpart who will help them with their own personal social work. This Libra rising person is very serious and sure the world is out of balance and that it’s up to each of us to share the load and fix the world’s problems.

But the other type isn’t sure of much of anything. These are the people who tend to attract Aries-type leaders who will take them in hand and tell them what to do. More than anything, this second type of Libra rising wants relationships to just sort of magically work out, and is rarely completely alone because the sweet, helpless approach works as an attractant for many who can’t believe someone so intelligent can be so clueless.

Libra rising people are frequently non-committal, and so relationships come and go, and they spend a lot of time unpacking each one with their friends. The goal is to better “understand” relationships, but the truth is that coming to a decision can take years, and not everyone’s willing to wait that long for a commitment.

Libra rising types, therefore, spend more time alone than other people, but they find someone new faster due to their Venus-ruled abilities to charm, deflect, and prevaricate, so they’re up to bat more often than most, but filled with confusion about what went wrong more often too. I’d say ‘what went wrong’ boils down to the notion that Libra rising is possibly more interested in the process of relating than the person they’re relating to. This can be fixed. They might need your help, though.

Scorpio Ascendant/Taurus Descendant: With Pluto and Mars ruling the Ascendant, you can pretty much expect that relationships are either all-consuming, or are avoided as traps of some sort. Extreme Scorpio rising people are extremely wary of being caught by the “wrong” person, and their ideas about who these people are are formed early in life and are often highly biased.

Their worldview was formed around the idea that the world is not a good place. Others will take advantage of you. You have to be strong and be able to fight dirty, if necessary. Their childhood is spent learning “life lessons” that amount to “don’t let the other guy beat you down.” They learn early on that they’re going to have to protect themselves.

Scorpio rising learns early how to influence or persuade others into some behavior pleasing to the Scorpio rising person. If you, on the other hand, think you’re going to persuade him of anything, think again–relationships are a one-way street for Scorpio rising when it comes to you exercising power.

If they share power with you, they probably have planets in the 11th or Aquarius or even Pisces, known for not noticing gender and sexual politics. It’s unusual for Scorpio rising to be in a relationship of “equals.”

You’ll probably figure this out too late, but one day you’ll realize they have held the reins the whole time and you have no or little say in much of anything. They prefer you to never notice this small detail, so make sure you have a separate bank account for the moment when their control appears total and you need to leave.

Depending on the nature of her feelings for you, she will let you into the depths of her secrets in a few years, or in many years if you appear too inquisitive early on. Intimacy will not happen overnight, so when she says she needs some time alone, just assume that even if she’s with someone else, you’re remembered in a special corner of her mind, where she mentally toys with her romantic possibilities.

Over and over again, she attracts people who insist on being The One. They become possessive, something that she hates unless she’s doing it, and she has to work out precisely how often she can see them before she has to make a decision about whether the relationship can endure or not.

Scorpio rising generally has no problem meeting people; in fact, there are probably far too many people interested in her than she might like. So her dilemma usually comes down to whether or not she has time or inclination for all her lovers, potential or actual, and which one she wants to give the most time to this week.

Either that or she’s married at 20 and has six children by the time she’s 30, because both Scorpio and Taurus are relatively fecund signs. Scorpio rising is often quite a catch, even early in life, and has many sweet young things following around behind them. The combination of Pluto, Mars, and Venus as rulers of the Ascendant/Descendant axis is far too potent and sexually-charged for others to ignore, so this rising sign is going to have a hard time–unless there’s something else going on in the chart–avoiding amorous suitors.

Even so, until they’re past a certain age and have amassed sufficient experience to be bored with conquest after conquest, I would try very hard not to be another notch in their bedpost. Instead of worrying about whether they’re afraid of being alone, I’d suggest leaving them alone if you’re not ready to be toyed with. This rising sign can be cruel to the innocent little lambs she attracts. Scorpio rising is too often attracted by innocence, forgetting that innocents are the ones most easily hurt.

Sagittarius Ascendant/Gemini Descendant: Jupiter and Mercury ruling the Ascendant/Descendant axis here make for a jolly time as long as there’s a promise of travel and light-hearted fun with few lead balloons weighing them down. This combination has no inherent need for a permanent relationship, but if you’re clever, handsome, interesting, or sufficiently fun, he will be happy to be with you for some period of time. Maybe a long period of time. A lot depends on what the rest of the chart looks like and if any energy is holding down this hot air balloon.

Gemini on the Descendant means this person attracts a lot of ‘friends’, many of whom can become lovers if the circumstances are right. Since other factors have to be present in the chart for this person to push you into a relationship that they probably don’t really want–since what they really want is to have fun, and then move on–consider them carefully before you decide you want to spend time persuading them to give up whatever it is they’re doing now to do something else with you.

Of all the signs on the Ascendant, except perhaps Aquarius and Pisces, Sagittarius is least interested in getting tied down. It can take years and years to get Sagittarius rising to even tell you he loves you, but once he’s said it, consider that akin to a commitment because these people are not not convinced permanent relationships make any real sense, not if you want to be free to live your life the way you like to live it, that is.

The primary reason Sagittarius rising will get married is down to a few rather simple things. One, you might have caught him or her at the right time. If all her friends are getting married and no one she knows is going to be around to talk to, then sure, marriage looks like the right thing to do because she’s not looking forward to being the odd one out.

In this one way, Sagittarius rising is not good at being alone; the rest of the time, she is way too busy cultivating all those friendships and opportunities Gemini on the Descendant brings her way to worry too much about romantic relationships.

Another reason is because she cannot afford her lifestyle and needs help paying the bills. I know this is not romantic, but it’s a fact. Sagittarius rising doesn’t mean to use you, but if you’re easy to talk to and you come along at the right moment–when everything looks bleak on her horizon of potential–yes, she might let you persuade her to tie the knot. Fingers crossed behind her back, and there’s always divorce if it doesn’t work out. You can be another experience, and she will be sadder and not much wiser.

The last reason is the best, if you’re a romantic, because no other sign falls in love as often. Sagittarius rising sees the world as inherently romantic, which is part of why he doesn’t want to settle down; there’s too much romance out there to breathe and he wants to experience it all. But if you are the right one who fits in with his idea of someone he’d be willing to give up his freedom for, then he might want to marry you, in between trips to Timbuktu or Zanzibar.

Because of the Mercurial nature of Gemini on the Descendant, Sagittarius rising tends to attract immature or whimsical types, people who couldn’t make a commitment if their lives depended on it. This generally works out okay unless there’s a Cancer or Capricorn factor in the natal chart, or perhaps the other Water or Earth signs too, since Water wants a commitment and Earth likes stability.

Capricorn Ascendant/Cancer Descendant: Like Cancer rising, this person is going to take getting married or being in a long-term relationship very seriously. Unlike Cancer rising, however, it’s highly unlikely this sign will fall in and out of love easily, nor will they want to marry at the ripe age of 16, not unless something else in their chart is pushing them out of the house.

Marriage, as they say, is a covenant not to be entered into lightly. Since Saturn-ruled Capricorn rising sees life as a highly serious endeavor, you’re not going to have an argument on your hands if you suggest this sign waits to marry. However–and because of the Descendant there’s always a “however”–Moon-ruled Cancer on the Descendant brings many opportunities, probably early in life, to fall in love, if not actually marry.

Depending on how the natal Moon is aspected, therefore, Capricorn might make an early-in-life commitment or might fall in love many, many times (or just once, if the Moon is strong or stressed) before he or she is satisfied with the prospects for future success and upward mobility represented by one specific person.

And then again, he may never marry, and that’s okay. Fewer and fewer people are marrying early these days, and Earth rising signs really should be given extra time to find out what they want to do with their lives anyway.

With Cancer on the Descendant, Capricorn rising might find herself attracting caregiver-types who want to mother her or father her, for that matter. There could be child/parent style relationships that grow out of Cancer’s innate need to be taken care of. After a certain point in life, when Capricorn rising lets herself experiment a bit, she can find she likes complicated social structures that aren’t only about succeeding in life, but are actually a reflection of a deeper nature she grows into, through her Cancer Descendant’s Moon rulership. There are emotional depths or places she might very well let herself explore as she gets older that involve emotional states she would never have allowed herself to experience when young.

They say Capricorn grows younger as she ages. In my experience, this is inaccurate. It’s more accurate to say that Capricorn wisely allows himself to blossom and open to the many colors of emotional expression as he gets older. This process is often facilitated by taking on a much younger paramour, someone who shows him what it’s like to let yourself feel more than one or two carefully-controlled emotions.

Capricorn rising’s worldview includes the idea that he or she might well be alone on his mountaintop for a very long time, since his dreams of success take up most of his early years. He senses the passing of each day as a pressurized wake-up call to get busy and stay busy. Until he lets himself experience the wonder of romance, it’s likely that early in life, he will marry a helper-bee type who will help him found his dynasty.

With Saturn ruling the chart, Capricorn rising doesn’t expect to be automatically good at relationships, and her failures, while deeply felt, can be compartmentalized. For all you Capricorn rising people out there vehemently disagreeing with this statement, I’m sure not all your planets are in Capricorn. You might have something mushy in a Water sign, for example. Or you might project your inner mushiness onto your partner.

Even so, Capricorn rising looks at the world as a place where one must work one’s tail off to succeed, and so she learns patience, even where love is concerned. Loneliness for Capricorn Ascendant seems like a given, until, of course, she lets herself feel and reach out to someone who can also feel deeply.

Aquarius Ascendant/Leo Descendant: Much depends on how Uranus, Aquarius’ ruler, is aspected, its natal house, and its overall strength or weakness. Uranus as a ruling planet makes the worldview a bit of a wildcard. Aquarius rising’s approach to life is unpredictable.

Generalizations are difficult to make about Aquarius rising, although one could go with the usual and say she wants to be everyone’s friend, and so her primary relationships are based on friendship, a type of relating that comes naturally and is therefore preferred over complicated love affairs.

Leo on the Descendant, though, means she draws in people who are probably more than she can handle emotionally. Sun as the ruler of the Descendant brings a panoply of types to her life, from the larger-than-life persona who lives with great passion, to the egotistical but brilliant Apollonian god, to the truly good person who makes everyone’s life better with his sunny disposition.
Aquarius rising is usually interested in everything, and asks a lot of questions of life. She can be philosophical, and would do best with someone broad-minded and worldly. I’d like to go along with the crowd and say that all Aquarius rising people are also broad-minded, but in fact they can be notoriously sure that their opinions are “right.” Leo on the Descendant attracts others into their lives unafraid to take them on and challenge their beliefs.

Aquarius rising’s worldview is formed around the belief that ideas are the most precious commodities we possess, and that being human means we must learn to control our emotions. While all of this is noble and true, Aquarius rising must also learn to own his or her emotions, not merely control them.

Relating to others is therefore not a magical gift Aquarius uses perfectly. Leo on the Descendant is going to attract at least some people who have big emotions, who seem highly dramatic, and this is going to create a fair amount of tension for the Aquarius rising person, who will be forced to practice fairness when judging these potential partners. Aquarius rising is always in danger of judging other people for having emotions at all, since she is usually trying to keep fairly rigid control over her own.

Leo on the Descendant, though, isn’t interested in “controlling” his emotions. He’s interested in himself, including his emotions. Aquarius rising sees his Leo Descendant counterpart as inherently “selfish.” But Aquarius rising is busy looking at the world as full of humans he must understand, so he will do his very best to “understand” and tolerate any partner he draws to himself who is also screaming or laughing loudly, or, god forbid, crying.

Relationships wear down quickly for Aquarius rising until he learns to accept that others have strong emotions. Aquarius on the Ascendant formed his worldview in an environment that found raw, unfiltered humanity to somehow be a little terrifying, and seeks to escape that feeling of being overwhelmed later in life.

Because of this feeling of being overwhelmed by other humans, Aquarius rising can be alone a great deal, and nonetheless be philosophical about it. He’ll spend this time alone reading books and attending lectures about how humans operate. Even if he’s not innately good at relating to your emotions, therefore, he’ll always be up for reading a book about how he could be relating to you.
The biggest “lesson” for Aquarius rising when it comes to relationships is to go past relating and understanding, and open herself to the Leo Descendant’s way of just Being. Leo Descendant attracts people who are self-expressive and potentially joyous in a relatively uncomplicated, even childlike, way.

Let someone sunny show you how to Just Be in your next relationship, and try not to squelch others’ emotions. Stop thinking about relating. Try to let yourself feel first and think later. Or, if you can’t stop controlling emotions, carry a paper bag with you at all times so if you hyperventilate when someone starts to cry, or when you start to cry, for that matter, you’ll be prepared.

Aquarius on the Ascendant can defy an overly-mental assessment if their Uranus is in aspect to something squishy, like the Moon or perhaps Venus or even Ceres, a ‘feminine’ planetoid that likes to give. Then they’ll have big emotions and even might cry, a lot! This can be shocking to everyone around them, but hey, that’s Uranus’ function, to shock you.

Pisces Ascendant/Virgo Descendant: With Neptune ruling the Ascendant, the individual mind morphs easily with the prevailing zeitgeist until it’s hard to tell where the individual ends and the group mind begins.

It is easier to ‘go with the flow’ and do what the crowd does than have a specific goal in relationships. Somewhere early in life this person learned to believe in the power of the collective, and now either strongly identifies with the collective or spends her life defying the collective to become a unique individual.

And that’s why drawing Virgo-types into one’s orbit is such a challenge, because they identify with being a distinct individual, self-determining and somewhat isolated.

This is not a particularly ideal type for the Neptune-ruled Pisces Ascendant to attract, since their view of the world involves morphing the idea of ‘self’ into the other person.

If the other person doesn’t want that kind of morphing, though, the Pisces Ascendant person is going to end up alone or, more likely, lonely in a relationship with an Air or Earth sign who in no way sees the world the way this elusive Water Ascendant does.

Pisces Ascendant people innately either believe strongly in something or are atheistic, believing in nothing and demanding, from their projected Virgo Descendant, that everyone prove themselves before they’ll be trusted. Virgo on the Descendant attracts straightforward types. Mercury-ruled Virgo is not usually interested in playing the kinds of games Pisces rising lives and breathes. It’s a rare Pisces Ascendant who sees himself clearly (but it’s possible; look to the condition of natal Neptune, Sun, and Moon to see how the individual is likely to behave in relationship). This means he relies on his partner for Mercurial updates on reality, since Pisces Ascendant would prefer to keep his rose-colored glasses on, if at all possible.

If you sincerely want to pursue a relationship with Pisces rising, try to remain clear-sighted about who he or she really is. Aspects in Pisces rising’s natal chart to the Ascendant will alter his persona dramatically, and he could be a social chameleon, which makes insecure people even more insecure. If you’re looking for a certain amount of sameness, Pisces rising is unlikely to suit unless he’s got strong Earth or other serious influences grounding him in his natal chart.

Pisces rising tends to rely heavily on the grounded nature of her partners, since Virgo on the Descendant rather promises that her partners will do most of the concrete thinking for her. If Pisces rising manages to stay in one relationship for a very long time, it will be because a) you didn’t let him wander off on a quest and b) he’s got some helpful Saturn, Earth, or serious water, like Scorpio, keeping him bound to one thought.

Did you think I was going to say one person? No. Pisces is not attracted to people, specifically. They might be attracted to your aura, your essence, your scent, your way of being in the world, the music you make, or some other piece of a song he carries in his head that you provide lyrics to. Getting him to see you as a real person might be the hardest thing of all, since his vision is colored by Neptunian dreams and fantasies.

Does this Ascendant sign spend much time alone? She can be alone, but it will be a momentary lapse before someone sees her across a crowded room and is drawn to the scarves and perfumes and mysticism. She might never answer your questions fully, and please don’t torture her with lots of facts. That’s the surest way to watch her slip away, off to find out where the zeitgeist is spending its time now. Be too real and you will challenge her, but she relies on that Virgo Descendant to learn how to be in a real relationship.

About Alison Gunn

Alison M. Gunn, Ph.D., has studied and practiced astrology for over 40 years. Her primary teachers were Noel Tyl, Jeff Green (before the 'Wolf'), and Maggie Nalbandian of Astrology Et. Al, Seattle, Washington. Alison specializes in relationship astrology, specifically Solar returns, Venus returns, synastry, composites, and progressed composites, although she also works with Mundane, Medical, and Judicial (predictive) astrology. Her belief is that astrology is a language, a symbolic system based on thousands of years of information. Alison's website is beyondthestarsastrology.com, where you can arrange a personal reading with her.

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